Arch, Steeples, and Dome: Religious Symbols on a Journey of Faith

Arch, Steeples, and Dome, Religious Symbols on a Journey of Faith is a reflective memoir where Marie Kevin Tighe leads the reader through the tremendous changes in the Church after the second Vatican Council regarding the principles of shared responsibility. It culminates with the Canonization of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin, the foundress of the Sisters of Providence at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, IN. "This journey," Sister Marie Kevin says, "Begins with the Arch; it was in Saint Louis, that I was given a deeper appreciation of our shared responsibility for the life of the Church." Like the complicated building of the arch, men and women have to work at understanding how to change and how much better we will become as a Church if we embrace the principles needed to work together effectively. This requires an understanding of the individual, the individual-in-community, and the community as a corporate person. It requires recognizing the community of faith as a human organization. We must have an understanding of trends, values, norms, climate and a process approach to change if we are going to become effectively the People of God in the spirit of Vatican II. Beginning with the Church of her early childhood, steeples became for her symbols of our reaching for God and one another in the living of our Christian life. Finally, in her work in Rome the Dome of Saint Peter's Basilica became another religious symbol. Standing in the Square of Saint Peter's in the shadow of the Dome and in the midst of thousands of God's people, she was given a vivid reminder of the prayer of Jesus, "That they all may be ONE " This book will help people understand that the enactment of the goals of Vatican II do not just happen automatically. We need to learn to be the Church in a new way.